


inheritance

by orphan_account



Series: professional environment [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Freeform, Original Team, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 08:24:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2303036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she thinks riley doesn’t notice when she looks at him all bent up but he thinks she’s just worried he’s gonna grow up all funny. </p>
<p>she’s wrong though, cause even if he left for good, left them all for dead, riley still got his blood, blood that made him tough as teeth and nails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	inheritance

**Author's Note:**

> hi! sorry if this is written weirdly! it was originally in first-person but i realized that i actually hate the way first person looks! 
> 
> anyway i'm going to be posting a lot more works about my original tf2 team (headcanons about each member's backgrounds, relationships with other members, etc.) this is the first, about my scout

howie said his name was (is) hector. riley believed him cause hes the oldest and he remembers the best. always has.

he also said he was french and that when he was with ma, he had a big patch of gray hair at his temples, just one on each side, but he still got all touchy about it. ma's got some grays now too, and riley wishes hector could see her. she looks real pretty, even with that gray hair, and she wears a nice blue dress with her apron when she's on her shift at the diner. she thinks riley doesn’t notice when she looks at him all bent up but he thinks she’s just worried he’s gonna grow up all funny.

she’s wrong though, cause even if he left for good, left them all for dead, riley's still got his blood, blood that made him tough as teeth and nails. riley and the other guys, they’re in kind of a gang, except they don’t fight with knives or guns, they just beat up other kids. they don’t take their lunch monies or their skating rink tickets, they just beat up people who wanna get beat up. or maybe they deserve it. riley never bothered to ask.

he turned fourteen twelve and a half days ago. ma made everyone a big cake ‘cause she knew there were seven at home with the others down to visit, and even though they all stuffed their faces full of icing and cake bits, a big fat slice remained on the cake tray. tony made a joke that it was for him, for hector, and riley thought joe was seriously gonna kick his teeth right out of his mouth. the cake slice sat on its tray for a real long time before ma finally threw it out. it got all crusty and hard, so riley told her he wouldn’t have wanted to eat it then anyway. sometimes riley thinks she goes in her room and cries, but he can never tell. his ceiling fan is real loud, too loud to hear someone talking even outside the door, but sometimes he gets to thinking he’s got an inkling that she does. he’d turn it off, especially ‘cause it gets cold in his room at night, but the little metal string thing is broken.

back to the birthday. ma got riley a nice new bat cause before that brandon stomped the old one in half when riley got mud on his cleats. riley told him it wasn’t fair but whatever. he got the new one and it worked pretty good. she had to work, but it was the graveyard shift, so they spent all afternoon together. she even tossed some baseballs at the park. she left though, and later when riley was about to be in a real deep sleep, howie woke him up. he said “riley kid wake up i’m gonna give yous your birthday present” and boy, he shot up outta that bed like he did it for sport. howie had a kid back home where he lives with his wife, so riley didn’t get his hopes up for a present from his brother. he was sorta bummed out when he did give it over though, mostly because it was some wrinkled square of paper in the dark. riley was pretty cranky, so he said “thank you howie i love it” kinda mad-like. howie got real stiff and sad-looking and he ruffled riley’s hair and left.

(he should’ve known it was important then, because howie hadn't done that kind of thing since riley was ten and asked why danny didn't have his dog tags anymore, surely he needed them in case he got hurt in battle and they couldn't figure out who he was.)

he looked at the picture for a long time when he woke up. must’ve come in close to three or four hours, judging by how most of the guys were gone, either to work or homes of their own.

in the photo, a brown-headed blur runs toward the photographer, and judging by the height it’s probably either danny or david. riley’s a fat little thing, not even a toddler, grinning a toothless-but-toothy smile and holding in his fat baby fist the fingers of someone he knows is him. is hector.

hector does indeed have strands of gray peeking up from his sideburns, sweeping across his dapper black hair like a brush stroked them there. he looks down at riley, clearly not noticing the picture being taken, and riley can see he’s got one arm occupying riley’s fingers and the other wrapped around his little stomach, supporting him on the skinny knee. his fingers are long and thin, much more spindle than father. riley thinks they fit his body, his face, which is thin and angular, sharp nose turned down in a less severe angle than his jawline.

(riley instinctively runs a hand down his own jawline, almost offended that he can feel his mother’s own heart-shaped face under his palms. )

the man, hector, has on a nice shirt, white and presumably pressed, and a vest that he wishes he knew the color of. his pants appear to match, and though the man is not wearing a tie, riley can sense he’s a well-dressed guy as a norm. his mother sits to hector’s left, a pale-faced younger clone of herself, the spitting image of beauty. her hand is on hector’s knee, the other holding up a figure that could be brandon or could be tony, riley can’t tell, who is curled up and sleeping against her shoulder.

a baseball mitt sits on the ground, along with a discarded shoestring and a pair of socks.

riley had cried, sat in his room for a long time listening to the hum of his fan, then walked down the empty roads to the diner where his mother works, money stuffed in tight in the pocket opposite his photograph. he slid into a booth, running his knuckles over his nose absently until she clicks over to him in her high heels. he ordered his favorite, a slice of cheesecake she made every day before she came home and she and riley counted the tips together, and while his fork tapped against the white surface of the plate with every bite, he unfolded the picture and placed it carefully beside him.

\---

mercenaries, trained killers, go in and out of the base like clockwork. whether on their way to another base or to the infirmary or to hell, they always pass riley's room in various states. bleeding is common, as is still as a corpse. still because they're corpses. most notable are the sounds of hardened killers, murderers of mighty men, combatants paid to kill those weaker, calling for their loved ones. they moan for them.

riley sits in his bunk, combing a hand over his hair before he places his cap over it. he sniffs the air, smoothing out the picture against the bed's itchy white sheets and rubbing his knuckles against his nose. he can't stand it at the base, hates being away from his mother and sure, that makes him a huge mama's boy kiss-up, but nobody cared about that stuff here.

he sniffs the air again, then decides it's high time he makes his way around the base, finds his way out of the dormitory and into the mess hall without having to get up half as early to arrive twice as late.

\---

across a battlefield peppered with pools of blood, in a base that's emblazoned with a logo that's now a faded and peeling peach, a man in a worn red mask decides it is high time he made a phone call.


End file.
